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Former Wonder Woman, Thor artist homeless, crowdfunding to pay debt

Former Marvel and DC Comics creator William Messner-Loebs has been a significant influence on several of comics’ most iconic characters including Wonder Woman, Thor and The Flash.

Starting in 2001, however, a series of life challenges compounded that sent Messner-Loebs and his family down a path of misfortune.

You can watch the full series of “The Maxx” on Amazon, and it’s still damn good

After seeing success with an MTV series based on his hit comic The Maxx, Messner-Loebs moved into a nice home with his wife. Then both his mother and his wife were afflicted by serious illness, and the bills piled up to a point that led to his eviction in 2001.

Messner-Loebs and his wife moved to a small trailer home for the next fifteen years where he managed to continue working in the comic industry. A gas leak in his trailer rendered his home unlivable and it was condemned by local authorities, and his finances were not stable enough to maintain another mortgage. Both Messner-Loebs and his wife were forced to live out of their car.

His wife’s medical bills continued to pile up. This past Winter, he and his wife moved into a homeless shelter run by local church, trying to pay off debt and unable to move too far from his wife’s doctors.

Now Messner-Loebs works as a delivery person for Panera Bread and as a janitor for his church, but he still wants to get back to working on his art again. He set up a GoFundMe page in mid-April with a goal to raise 15 thousand dollars, and so far the community has stepped up in support. At the time of this writing, Messner-Loebs has raised just over 13 thousand dollars.

Certainly many comic creators over the years have fallen into financial troubles, but it’s not every day that comic fans get a chance to give back to the creators who helped shape the industry.

If you would like to donate to William Messner-Loebs’ GoFundMe campaign, you can do so here.

If you would prefer to donate to The Severe Weather Network which assists the homeless in Messner-Loebs’ home of Livingston County, Michigan, you can do so here.